In wireless local area networks, such as networks that operate according to the IEEE 802.11/Wi-Fi® wireless local area network (WLAN) standard, some wireless client devices (such as smartphones and tablets) in the field support certain (newer) features or functions of the standard, whereas other, older wireless client devices in the field, do not support those features. As an example, the IEEE 802.11r/Fast Transition (FT) is a feature that some wireless client devices do not support and consequently some wireless client devices fail to connect to an access point (AP) when FT is enabled by that AP in the wireless local area network (WLAN), even when FT is one option among others (hybrid WLANs where FT and standard Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) are supported). In other words, some wireless client devices are still able to associate to the AP, some fail to associate only if that feature (e.g., FT) is enabled and others fail to associate when a hybrid mode is support.
As a result, many WLANs supporting Robust Security Network (RSN) and mobile wireless devices still only implement standard WPA2, and do not implement FT even in hybrid mode, out of concern of wasting troubleshooting time when old wireless client devices try to join the WLAN.
What is desirable is a way to let some wireless clients capable of supporting a particular wireless network feature to benefit from that feature, without disrupting the connectivity or performance of older clients which do not support that wireless network feature.